Press release of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Geneva/Ljubljana, 11 March 1999
N° 1

At the invitation of the Slovenian National Assembly, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) will hold, in Ljubljana on 12 March (inaugural ceremony at 2 p.m.) and 13 March 1999, a preparatory thematic meeting of the IIIrd Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Security and Co-operation in the Mediterranean (CSCM). The session will take place on the premises of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia on the following topic:

At its 158th session (held in April 1996 in Istanbul), the Inter-Parliamentary Council (the IPU's governing body) approved the recommendation to hold a series of specialised thematic meetings to prepare the IIIrd Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Security and Co-operation in the Mediterranean (CSCM) due to take place in Tunis in the year 2000. The two previous CSCM meetings were held in Malaga in 1992 and in Valletta in 1995.

The Ljubljana preparatory meeting is to be viewed in the general dynamic of the process as defined by the IInd CSCM: "... a genuine comprehensive project underlaid by a sense of communal interest, backed up by human and financial resources. It is essential that all the Mediterranean partners, without exception, become involved in such a project on an equal footing, thus making it possible for all Mediterraneans to draft a Mediterranean policy tailored to the specific characteristics and needs of the region". The CSCM is the only process bringing together all of the Mediterranean coastal States and two non-coastal States whose economic, political and strategic life is directly linked to the Mediterranean (Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Monaco, Morocco, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Tunisia, Turkey and Yugoslavia. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Palestine are also invited as associate participants, as well as regional and international organisations.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Geneva-based world organisation of parliaments, currently has 136 affiliated national Parliaments and 4 associate regional parliamentary assemblies. The IPU also has a Liaison Office with the UN in New York: tel. (1.212) 5575880, fax (1.212) 5573954, e-mail: ny-office@mail.ipu.org.

Contact person: Ms Luisa Ballin, IPU Information Officer. Tel. in Geneva: tel. (004122) 919.41.16 and 919.41.27, e-mail: lb@mail.ipu.org and cd@mail.ipu.org. In Ljubljana : (33861) 178 94 83, 178 94 84 (Slovenian National Assembly) or (33861) 308 12 70 (Grand Hotel Union).